


Fathers

by oldwickedsongs



Category: Repo! The Genetic Opera (2008)
Genre: Drug Use, Murder
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-07-12
Updated: 2013-07-12
Packaged: 2017-12-19 06:01:36
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 929
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/880274
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/oldwickedsongs/pseuds/oldwickedsongs
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Nathan collects on a job.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Fathers

He walks down a crowded street but the world is deserted. There is a yellow funk hangs the air, intertwining with the neon signs from flesh bars and clubs, graying lamp posts and emaciated bums, Z addicts and whores that populate this world. There it is, a world full of nonentities, and it’s his world. 

The creatures of this world notice him like they notice the dark, the filth, it exists but it is so engrained into their being that to really pay attention to it is like trying to count the beats of their heart. 

In his suit of uncomfortable cotton scrubs, sanitized rubber and thick soled boots, the Repo Man is aware of them too, albeit more proactively: future clients. 

 

The dead watch the dying with neither sympathy nor fear, merely acknowledgement and a vague understanding that one follows the other. He wonders where it began really, the creative terms for stuff. Not the words of course, like sinister or terror; those are just words but the way they’re used, the muddling of precision, and the elaboration on emotions. They way people insulate themselves with or against fear.

The Repo Man is nothing if not precise and he doesn’t have the time for such decorative thinking; so he walks down the grimy street and pays no heed to the smell of the air, the hollowed out looks that follow him, or the shutters that the offal of the town do not realize they are doing. He shifts his wrist and feels the weight of his medical bag swing obligingly. He is lonely on a crowded street, but not alone. He never is. 

He stops abruptly. The addict leaning against the fire escape, the one trying so hard to look unafraid, the one who can’t be more then fifteen shutters and catches his eyes. Bright blue irises, jaundiced and wide with fear. He can tell the kid’s a junkie from the yellow eyes, and the twitchy joints tell him it’s Hepatitis B, probably from all the Zydrate he has been pumping into his system. There are unhealed scars, sticky blue from the surgical glue jutting from under the sleeves; amateurish, sloppy and self-inflicted. 

There’s a brief thought that runs through the Repo Man’s mind as he trudges forward. 

Where is your father? Does he know?

“Move.” He orders. The kid scampers. 

 

Inside the apartment, there is no escape from the stink or the grime. There’s very little light, and it comes from neon sign a few floors above this one. The room is bathed in the orange fluorescence; T-E-L dances on the reflection of his goggles over and over again. Slowly, one letter at a time, T-E-L…and he wonders ‘tell who?’

He can hear someone moving in the backroom but he doesn’t follow the noise, not yet. He is so good at what he does because he is a controlled man, because he takes cares of his patients. He kneels down (into something squishy and a color he didn’t want to pay too much attention to) and opens the heavy leather bag. 

There’s a pain that cracks through his skull as the patient barreled into him and then over him- darting out of the open door. He glances at the retreating Converses as he straightens, taking his time to steady himself, to readjust his helmet and then cock his head to one side watching the panting, panicking man scramble. The Repo Man takes his time.

A thirty-something year old junkie pumped up on sub par Z, panicking and probably high, scrambling down a rotting building. He is being pursued by an older man yes, but one in full control of his faculties and one who knows exactly how a body reacts to stress, drug use and general misuse. He also knows how frail a transplant patient really it is, despite cheating death. He doesn’t mind the odds. 

The job takes him a total of forty-five minutes, all told, from first incision to sealing of double sided tape on the plastic biohazard bags. 

The lungs were preserved but unsalvageable; the patient was a smoker (another clear violation of the GeneCo loan agreement) but not that that really mattered, now. Disposal crews would be in a few hours to tidy up. His job was done.

Sliding off his hood, Nathan sucked in the stale air, and choked down his retching stomach. Without the mask, the decay was worst but it was blissfully a dry smell: not sticky from sweat and claustrophobic. His neck hurt. 

He pushed the plastic bags into his case, and snapped it shut. There was another movement at the door of the apartment, this time it was soft and frozen. It made him flinch, without his gear, and he snapped his head up: catching the figure before it ran.

Bright blue eyes, jaundiced and wide were staring at his heavily gloved hands and the case. Then back to him. 

And understanding washed through him as the child stood trembling against the doorframe, unable to move his attention away from the grisly remains. 

“Move.” 

The plea caused the teen to look up again; to watch him for several moments, before the trembling, twitchy figure disappeared into the pale orange light. 

T-E-L…over and over again. Tell what? Tell who? T-E-L...T-E-L...

There was a pet dish near the door he hadn’t noticed coming in and a nearly empty bag of meal beside it, all crumpled up closed to keep safe from rodents. Nathan refilled it before he too was swallowed up by the smoke, grime and loneliness.


End file.
